April 2012 Archives

The lake monster, named Minne, that resembles the Loch Ness Monster is a social media guru, the Huffington Post reported.

Cameron Gainer created Minne three years ago, and in the past year partnered with the Minneapolis Parks Foundation to boost park attendance, CBS Minnesota reported.

Minne's location is always a mystery, but she tweets and Facebooks clues for her followers to find her.

"There is nothing better than walking around the lake and for the first time spotting Minne," Mary DeLaittre of the Minneapolis Parks Foundation said. "And it's not just once, they keep coming back and coming back and weaving stories around Minne."

Circuit Judge Jessica Recksiedler recused herself from the George Zimmerman trial due to a conflict of interest, MSNBC reported.

The attorney for Zimmerman, Mark O'Mara, asked that Recksiedler be removed from the case, according to ABC News, because her husband is in the same law firm as a legal analyst for CNN who has commented on the case.

"The goal is to have a new judge in place in order to make that hearing," court spokeswoman Michelle Kennedy said of Zimmerman's impending hearing this Friday.

Considering these setbacks, the state and attorneys estimate that the trial will not be settled until 2013, according to ABC News.

In the middle of the night, a loud knock on the door is followed by foreign forces barging into your home and searching for insurgents.

Until now, this was common practice in Afghanistan, with U.S. troops often performing the "night raid," Time reported.

The Afghan minister of defense Abdul Rahim Wardak and the American commander General John R. Allen signed an agreement Sunday that will gradually stop U.S. forces from performing night raids and give more power to Afghan forces to perform them, The New York Times reported.

"This is an important step in strengthening the sovereignty of Afghanistan," Wardak said in a press conference.

The U.S. is also optimistic that this agreement will lead to Afghan sovereignty.

Allen said Afghans are now "in the lead on two of the most important issues: capturing the terrorists and ensuring they remain behind bars."

Within the display case of Cupcake bakery and wine bar on University Avenue, sit rows and rows of cupcakes piled high with delectable frosting, waiting for a worthy customer to choose them.

Cupcake owner Kevin VanDeraa has been trying to open a secondary location on Grand Avenue for months, but the city of St. Paul denied their license because of a parking issue, the Star Tribune reported.

Mayor Chris Coleman proposed a parking plan that saved the day for Cupcake and prompted the St. Paul City Council to approve the license on Wednesday, the Pioneer Press reported.

According to VanDeraa, the new St. Paul location will be open sometime this summer.

Flames erupted from 40 apartment units in Virginia Beach, Va. after a navy jet crashed into the complex on Friday, CBS News reported.

The student pilot and his instructor ejected before the crash, and Navy Capt. Mark Weisgerber said in a press conference that the plane had experienced a "catastrophic mechanical malfunction," according to The Wall Street Journal.

The pilots had also dumped most of the F/A-18D Hornet's jet fuel before ejecting.

"By doing so, he mitigated what could have been an absolute massive, massive fireball and fire," Virginia Beach EMS division chief Bruce Nedelka told The Wall Street Journal. "With all of that jet fuel dumped, it was much less than what it could have been."

Thankfully, only seven people were injured and there were no deaths.

"It just looked basically like he dropped out of the sky, pretty much," witness Daniel Kavanaugh told CBS News. "The front end of the plane started going down and then, boom - a huge black cloud of smoke."